Rae’s instincts kicked in before her brain could catch up.

As the alarms blared, Ji Woo stepped back into the shadows. A panel in the wall hissed open with a burst of steam, and something stepped out.

Tall. Armored. Breathing like a war machine.

Prototype X wasn’t fully human anymore—whatever it had been before, Ji Woo had replaced most of it with muscle-enhancing tech, metal wiring under its skin, and reflex programming. Its eyes glowed faint red.

“Meet the first model,” Ji Woo called out through the intercom.
“Faster than you. Stronger than you. And it doesn’t get tired.”

Rae dropped into a stance.

“Great. Let’s see if it bleeds.”

The prototype lunged, fast and brutal. Rae barely ducked in time, the blow cracking the concrete wall behind her.

They traded blows—fist for fist, shockwaves rippling through the corridor.

Rae’s knuckles burned from the impact. The thing didn’t even flinch.

Okay, yeah, she thought. Maybe this one’s out of my weight class.

Meanwhile, Rin was in a mad dash toward the server room.

Using the stolen access code from Finch’s drive, she bypassed the firewalls and activated a forced system shutdown—but Facility X13 was already countering her with auto-restart protocols and biometric failsafes.

She pulled up the prototype’s control file, trying to trigger a remote override.

“Come on, come on… everyone’s got an off switch…”

Her fingers stopped when she saw the name:

PROTOTYPE X — BASELINE SUBJECT: H.S. #112 — FORMER HUMAN MATCH: HAN SUNG

Her eyes widened.

“Wait… that’s a real person?”

Rin stared at the faded ID photo. A man, mid-20s, military background. Gone missing two years ago. Listed deceased.

They weren’t just building from scratch… they were converting people.

“Rae!” she shouted into the earpiece. “It’s not just a machine! He was a person! They rewired him!”

Back in the hallway, Rae was pinned against the wall, blood at her lip, her feet scraping for leverage.

She growled, twisted, and used all her weight to flip the prototype—but it landed like a cat, springing back at her with machine precision.

“This is pointless,” Ji Woo said from the speaker. “You’re too emotional. He’s clean. Controlled.”

Rae wiped her mouth. “You know what your science project doesn’t have?”

She stepped back, lured it in, then kicked the overhead sprinkler pipe.

Water burst out.

Electric wires. Metal frame. Wet floor.

“Street smarts.”

The prototype stepped into the puddle.

Rin, on cue, overloaded its core processor from the panel.

BOOM.

The prototype locked up—spasmed—then dropped like a bag of bricks.

Silence.

Smoke.

And then Ji Woo’s voice, cold as ever:

“You’re clever.

That’s good.

Clever girls survive long enough to realize what they’re truly capable of.”

Rae staggered into the control room, covered in bruises.

“You good?” she asked Rin.

“Define good,” Rin said, typing furiously. “I just found files labeled ‘Alpha Phase – Do Rin / Do Rae’ and something called ‘Project Split.’”

“Split?”

Before Rin could answer, the monitors all went black.

Then a single message appeared on screen:

“See you soon, little legacies.”

The signature at the bottom?

— Mi Na.